Clamp Crazy

[musicman2000]

So, here is a picture of my current clamp collection. I don't have much, and I keep hearing the ol' cliche: "you can never have too many." However, I need some advice regarding which clamps I should get first. The middle 2 wooden clamps I bought yesterday thinking that is what I need for gluing the tail and neck blocks. There are too many types of clamps to sort through. What should I use?

Tom

[SKBarbour]

I went though some pics looking for a pic of one of the blocks being clamped. This is from my first guitar, which was a Stew Mac kit. I didn't use an outside mold which is why I used a radius end block on the outside. Having an outside mold will make this easier. I would do the tail block first to get a feel for clamping and lining everything up. The neck block is more critical in its alignment so doing the tail block can be a kind of test run. You should do a couple of dry runs, clamping without glue, for practice anyway. Hope this helps.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Tom, I have some of those wooden screw clamps and I think as I did you will find they don't' work very well for what we are doing in guitar making.
I have not yet purchased cam clamps and I'm almost done with my 7th guitar, but they seem to be a good choice for much of the clamping you will need to do. I have quite a few c clamps and they work pretty well but as you tighten up stuff wants to move, the cam clamps don't twist as they tighten so I can see much advantage there. The trigger bar clamps work pretty well, but the cheap ones from HF don't have much holding power and at under $2 on sale for a 12" bar, they are pretty cheap to buy. I still find uses for them. If you can spend the dough get a fleet of cam clamps.

Kevin

[jeffrodite]

These are the clamps that I find are of the most use to me. Much better than the screw clamps for glueing neck and tail blocks. They are under 10 bucks at Lowes. I am sure that John Hall will chime in and concur...

[jeffrodite]

You can also build your own cam clamps fairly easy. I built a bunch of them. Here is a link to an old post showing them. It was my intention to post a tutorial on how to do it, just haven't gotten around to it yet.
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=5597

[tippie53]

I love the Y C clamps.